Party of 5 Is Back! Watch the Reboot's Emotional First Teaser Set in an ICE Detention Center
Freeform’s Party of Five reboot is reimagining the original ’90s beloved family drama with a modern-day cultural narrative.
In the new iteration by original series creators Amy Lippman and Christopher Keyser, the Acosta siblings are forced to survive as a family unit in the wake of their mother and father’s deportation to Mexico.
In a three-minute long sneak peek of the pilot episode, Emilio (Brandon Larracunete), Lucia (Emily Tosta), Beto (Niko Guarded), Valentina (Elle Paris Legaspi) and their baby brother Rafa share an emotional goodbye with their parents in an immigration detention center.
“I need to ask you something,” Gloria Acosta (Fernanda Urrejola) says to her children while holding Rafa. “You have to look after Rafa.”
After her children agree, Valentina, the youngest daughter, tearfully promises her mother, “We’ll bring him to visit you, every time we can. And we can Skype every day.”
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The couple’s eldest daughter, Lucia, shares her anger at the immigration laws and begins to argue with one of the officers while insisting to her parents that they’ve “done nothing wrong.”
“What’s the matter with this country?” Lucia yells, as her father insists that she show “dignity” in the moment.
“They don’t care who we are, Papi. Dont you understand that by now?” she responds.
“Then we show ourselves,” Javier tells her, and he and Gloria grab their bags for a final emotional goodbye to their children.
As the couple walk along the opposite side of a gate from their kids, Javier shares a heartbreaking moment with Emilio, the eldest child.
“We carried you across the desert, across the border,” Javier says. “We thought we were going to die there. Here we are, look at you. You’re so big and smart and talented. You be what you want to be okay. I’m so proud of you.”
The father and son bid farewell, as Gloria asks her children to promise that they will all stay together.
The couple are ushered away by immigration officers, as their five children watch behind the gate in tears.
In the original Party of Five series that aired on Fox, the Sallinger siblings, played by Matthew Fox, Scott Wolf, Neve Campbell and Lacey Chabert, lost their parents in a car accident.
The show ran from 1994 to 2000, and was positively received by critics, despite low ratings. The series won the Golden Globe Award for best drama TV series in 1996.
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When announcing the remake last fall, Keyser and Lippman described it as “a modern reimagining of the groundbreaking original series” that would focus more on current political issues in America.
“Today, stories of families being separated, children having to raise themselves in the wake of their parents’ deportations, don’t require any imagination; they are everywhere,” Lippman and Keyser said, seemingly in reference to President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
“This new iteration of Party of Five isn’t a retread of the original,” they continued. “It’s a whole new look at kids trying to parent each other in the wake of circumstances beyond their control, yet learning a similar lesson: that families persist no matter how great the obstacles.”
Party of Five will premiere on Jan. 8 on Freeform.
